It's Not A Very Pretty Picture 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Didn't End When The Director Yelled Cut

August 31, 1986|By Joe Bob Briggs

Exactly 11 days before the national release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, my scene was ripped out of the movie by Cannon Films, causing famous big-deal horror director Tobe Hooper to tell friends that he may never be able to direct again.

The cut scene starred three of the finest minds working in show business today: Twinkle Bayoud, the Dallas socialite millionaire party-throwing Lear- jetting blonde who showed up on the set and begged to be in the film; Victoria Powells, the Los Angeles actress who might be in a soap opera someday; and, of course, me. Twinkle and I played ourselves. Victoria played an unnamed Dallas bimbo.

In the scene, you would have seen me and two yuppy bimbos leaving a shopping-mall multiplex where we had viewed Exploding Heads Part 2. We talked about this movie; then we reached the doorway to a dark parking lot. Twinkle and Victoria walked out the door just as Leatherface sprung out of the back of a catering van, revving his chainsaw as he leaped. Frozen in my tracks, I watched them butchered to death through a steady rain of bloody popcorn, fragments of designer dresses, mutilated high heels and human body parts. I held Leatherface's work in such admiration that I was unable to run.

My inaction cost me. Leatherface noticed his audience and turned on me. As the chainsaw plunged into a very sensitive part of my body, I gave my final review: ''Four stars, man. Saw Fu!!!''

A masterpiece scene, you say? A scene so powerful that you no longer even want to see this movie, knowing that this scene is sequestered in a musty vault somewhere in Century City, Calif?

Now let's take a look at how such a thing could happen in the Newnited States of America in 1986 in a democracy. Let's try to answer the question ''Who Killed Joe Bob?'' And let's start by reviewing possible motives.

SUSPECT NUMERO UNO: The Motion Picture Association of America ratings board. As we all know, Saw 2 is unrated. The reason it's unrated is that they showed it to the MPAA board twice, and the board said it was gonna get an X unless they cleaned it up. Many people assumed this was an X for violence and was prob'ly the fault of Tom Savini, the make-up goremaster who constructed several body-hacking sequences for the flick. Is it possible that, in a flagrant effort to get an R rating, Cannon Films took my scene out, assuming that the movie was being given an X for acting?

SUSPECT NUMERO TWO-O: Menahem Golan. Menahem -- the co-owner of Cannon Films, the man that made Chuck Norris possible, producer of the last two Death Wishes, the man that put the capital E back in Exploitation. Menahem, the man who spent $4.6 million on Saw 2. Menahem, my kind of guy. Could it be that Menahem wanted my part?

SUSPECT NUMBERO THREE-O: Twinkle Bayoud's husband, Bradley Bayoud. Could it be that Brad was upset at his main squeeze for demeaning the Highland Park family name by doing a scene with Joe Bob?

SUSPECT NUMERO FOUR-O: L.M. ''Kit'' Carson, the screenwriter. Obviously we have to take into consideration the matter of professional jealousy. All Kit Carson ever wrote was the screenplay for Paris, Texas, which lucked into the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival, which is in France. So Kit wrote 130 pages of Saw 2, and I wrote my own scene (two pages), and, well, what can I say?

SUSPECT NUMERO FIVE-O: Victoria Powells, the ''Other Woman'' in the scene. Maybe she resented having her first line in a major motion picture be ''Yecccccch.''

SUSPECT NUMERO SIX-O: The mysterious ''Ak Shun,'' the name used by a crew member who wrote an article for the Austin Chronicle after filming was completed. Ak Shun basically dumped all over the movie for requiring the crew to stay up 'til 4 in the morning to get shots of psychos drawing blood from a woman's ears and eyes with a coat hanger -- stuff like that.

Also, Ak Shun wrote that ''it wasn't a pretty sight, either, to watch the feature film debut of Dallas' drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs.'' Then he described the scene and went on about it and said that when I got killed at the end, ''Now, there's a climax for you. Wishful thinking, too.''